We present a detailed analysis of the rare exclusive Higgs-boson decays into a single vector meson and a photon and investigate the possibility of using these processes to probe the light-quark Yukawa couplings. We work with an effective Lagrangian w
ith modified Higgs couplings to account for possible new-physics effects in a model-independent way. The h->Vgamma{} decay rate is governed by the destructive interference of two amplitudes, one of which involves the Higgs coupling to the quark anti-quark pair inside the vector meson. We derive this amplitude at next-to-leading order in alpha_s using QCD factorization, including the resummation of large logarithmic corrections and accounting for the effects of flavor mixing. The high factorization scale mu~m_h ensures that our results are rather insensitive to the hadronic parameters characterizing the light-cone distribution amplitude of the vector meson. The second amplitude arises from the loop-induced effective hgammagamma* and hgamma Z* couplings, where the off-shell gauge boson converts into the vector meson. We devise a strategy to eliminate theoretical uncertainties related to this amplitude to almost arbitrary precision. This opens up the possibility to probe for O(1) modifications of the c- and b-quark Yukawa couplings and O(30) modifications of the s-quark Yukawa coupling in the high-luminosity LHC run. In particular, we show that measurements of the ratios Br(h->Upsilon(nS)gamma)/Br(h->gammagamma) and Br(h->bb)/Br(h->gammagamma) can provide complementary information on the real and imaginary parts of the b-quark Yukawa coupling. More accurate measurements would be possible at a future 100 TeV proton-proton collider.
A comprehensive, five-dimensional calculation of Higgs-boson production in gluon fusion is performed for both the minimal and the custodially protected Randall-Sundrum (RS) model, with Standard Model fields propagating in the bulk and the scalar sect
or confined on or near the IR brane. For the first time, an exact expression for the gg->h amplitude in terms of the five-dimensional fermion propagator is derived, which includes the full dependence on the Higgs-boson mass. Various results in the literature are reconciled and shown to correspond to different incarnations of the RS model, in which the Higgs field is either localized on the IR brane or is described in terms of a narrow bulk state. The results in the two scenarios differ in a qualitative way: the gg->h amplitude is suppressed in models where the scalar sector is localized on the IR brane, while it tends to be enhanced in bulk Higgs models. In both cases, effects of higher-dimensional operators contributing to the gg->h amplitude at tree level are shown to be numerically suppressed under reasonable assumptions. There is no smooth cross-over between the two scenarios, since the effective field-theory description breaks down in the transition region. A detailed phenomenological analysis of Higgs production in various RS scenarios is presented, and for each scenario the regions of parameter space already excluded by LHC data are derived.
The infrared divergences of QCD scattering amplitudes can be derived from an anomalous dimension Gamma, which is a matrix in color space and depends on the momenta and masses of the external partons. It has recently been shown that in cases where the
re are at least two massive partons involved in the scattering process, starting at two-loop order Gamma receives contributions involving color and momentum correlations between three (and more) partons. The three-parton correlations can be described by two universal functions F_1 and f_2. In this paper these functions are calculated at two-loop order in closed analytic form and their properties are studied in detail. Both functions are found to be suppressed like O(m^4/s^2) in the limit of small parton masses, in accordance with mass factorization theorems proposed in the literature. On the other hand, both functions are O(1) and even diverge logarithmically near the threshold for pair production of two heavy particles. As an application, we calculate the infrared poles in the q qbar --> t tbar and g g --> t tbar scattering amplitudes at two-loop order.
We complete the study of two-loop infrared singularities of scattering amplitudes with an arbitrary number of massive and massless partons in non-abelian gauge theories. To this end, we calculate the universal functions F_1 and f_2, which completely
specify the structure of three-parton correlations in the soft anomalous-dimension matrix, at two-loop order in closed analytic form. Both functions are found to be suppressed like O(m^4/s^2) in the limit of small parton masses, in accordance with mass factorization theorems proposed in the literature. On the other hand, they are unsuppressed and diverge logarithmically near the threshold for pair production of two heavy particles. As an application, we calculate the two-loop anomalous-dimension matrix for q q_bar --> t t_bar near threshold and show that it is not diagonal in the s-channel singlet-octet basis.
We investigate non-linear, spherically symmetric solutions to the coupled system of a quintessence field and Einstein gravity. In the presence of a scalar potential, we find regular solutions that to an outside observer very closely resemble Schwarzs
child black holes. However, these cosmon lumps have neither a horizon nor a central singularity. A stability analysis reveals that our static solutions are dynamically unstable. It remains an open question whether analogous stable solutions exist.
